Episode 6 Motherland

I know you're in there.

SHE KNOCKS ON DOOR

I don't want anything.

Mother!

Anyway, I just want to say that I found a nanny, a wonderful nanny.

I think you'd really like her. I mean, she's a lot like you.

She's just much, much younger than you, but, God, she's so great!

Erm, I just wanted to say that I'm...

I'm sorry.

I mean, I'm not sorry for anything that I've done, cos obviously you really landed me in it,

but I'm sorry that we live in a patriarchy and that modern economics is skewed in favour of men.

I'm sorry that our generation are so reliant on our parents as a result.

So, I am sorry for the system.

I apologise for the system!

Which I have to say that your generation is almost entirely responsible for.

I'm not laying that on you, Mum.

Mum?

Anyway, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Julia.

You know, when me and your dad started off, I was in the same position.

I didn't feel listened to...

See you later!

Love you, love you!

Oh, hey, just quickly, erm,

I got the clothes that they seem to have grown out of and I separated

out the ones that, you know,

might have a bit of sentimental value,

-but I just took the rest to Oxfam. I hope that's OK.

-OK?

That's wonderful!

I mean, maybe you could do the same with my bra drawer. That would be great.

-You're classic, mate, honestly.

-Oh, did you put those there?

That's...lovely. Photographs of me with the children

on a heart tree metal thing, not in a drawer.

God, you are wonderful!

Oh, you all are, obviously my children are wonderful, but you are great.

You are great!

Go! All right? You're going to be late!

Is that almond or apricot?

Oh, hi, Lindsey, sorry to bother you, are you OK?

Oh, it's a message. Sorry, I'm being really stupid!

Erm, I was just phoning because, erm,

I'd love to put the kids to bed tonight, so if you could keep them up for me, that would be great.

OK. Love you.

No! Sorry!

"Love you." What am I like?

OK, bye.

Oh, you, you go ahead, I'm still, erm, choosing.

OK, yeah, thanks, Camilla.

Yeah, bye.

-You did it.

-Of course I did it.

-He's going to host?

-We've got Hammond.

He's definitely out of hospital, yeah?

Ha-ha! Yeah, he's out of hospital.

You're killing it this month.

-Oh, my God, I've totally caught up. It's Lindsey.

-Lindsey?

Oh, my new nanny. I mean, she's just the business.

She is, God, she's super-smart, she's such a laugh,

she's so on it and she knows all these little life hacks that just make my life so...

I mean, if you're going to have someone in your house, you know, who you don't know,

you've got to have a laugh, haven't you?

I mean, like, this morning, Liz...

Lindsey was... This is her sense of humour, OK?

So, the kids, they found this...

SHE CHUCKLES

They found this dead frog in the garden and Liz...

Lindsey picked it up and she was about to...

OK, great stuff. Whatever it is you're doing, just keep doing it, Julia.

-Great!

-OK?

-Thanks, Andrew.

Charlie, your shoes. Charlie, your shoes!

-You all right?

-I'm all right.

You, erm, got rid of that coat?

Didn't suit me.

You look knackered.

Cheers.

You've had your eyebrows done.

-Debbie Louise threaded them at her spa.

-Really?

Very Shane Warne.

Raargh!

All right, come on, get your shoes on. Go, go, go, go, go!

Come on, mate!

So, erm, listen, we've got to talk about when Debbie Louise has the baby,

I'm going to, erm, have to reduce child maintenance for obvious reasons.

Oh, yeah, about that,

I think you forgot to tell the CSA about the wage increase you had in January.

Yeah, but don't worry, easy fix. I went to the Citizens Advice Bureau

and they said you've been underpaying me for the last 13 months,

so, backdated, that's 1,800 quid.

Oh, and watch out for Charlie.

He drank all of the baby's lactulose,

so he might have a bit of diarrhoea in about four hours.

Have a good time, kid!

-See you Sunday!

-Hang on...

I just don't see what's so complicated.

You write a message in here, and everyone who's in the channel can see it.

It just means we can keep track of conversations better.

Why can't we just use WhatsApp? Amanda always said it was simplest.

Well, Amanda's not around any more, is she?

And I'm afraid she's wrong, anyway,

because WhoZis is much easier to use than WhatsApp.

-I like Facebook.

-WhoZis is much cleverer than Facebook.

It has channels.

Look, it's, it's...

So simple.

Say you want to talk about, I don't know, baking.

You post it in the cakes channel.

Then if you're not interested in baking,

you just press remove to take you out of it.

That way, you won't get bombarded with notifications about cakes.

Oh, has everyone remembered to turn on their notifications?

-How do you do that?

-It's in settings.

It's... It's so simple.

Is this why no-one's been replying to me about the Pistachios protest?

It's still not a breast-feeding friendly cafe, guys.

Hello, everyone. Budge up, Kevin.

Listen, now, I don't think we should do the Pistachios protest.

-What? Why?

-Because it's a business and businesses bring wealth to the

community. We can't be telling businesses what to do, guys.

Is that your Daily Mail there, Anne?

No, that's mine. Do you want it?

Excuse me.

-Liz, Liz.

-I'm not going over there, Kevin.

Socket's here. I like to be beside the socket.

-I'm charging.

-But you're by the toilets,

and you keep getting the breeze from the door.

I like being by the toilets and I like the breeze from the door.

-I like it here.

-Yeah.

You're missing out. We've just shared a croissant between three of us.

-How have you been, Kevin?

-Oh, great, great.

Might be going back to work soon.

Oh. Oh, that's great, I guess.

-How did that happen?

-You know how Jill and I have been seeing someone

about Jill's... Not unhappiness, that's too strong a...

Her melancholy, let's say.

No, even that...

-Her sorrow?

-Anyway.

Anyway, our counsellor thought we needed to shake things up,

so Jill's going to go back to being a full-time mum and I'm...

I'm going to go back to work.

I'm actually really looking forward to it.

I'm so glad we started seeing that counsellor,

even though everything was fine and we didn't need to.

-How are you?

-I'm all right.

-Seen Julia?

-Oh, Kevin, stop asking.

PHONE BUZZES

Oh, no, Anne!

This should be in the school channel.

Can you delete and repost?

How do you delete?

Oh, shit.

DOORBELL RINGS

Lindsey! Lindsey, sorry, I forgot my keys!

DOORBELL RINGS

Lindsey?

TEXT ALERT

Oh, hey, so sorry, Julia.

Oh, don't be silly. Don't you remember I asked if you'd, erm,

-keep them up for me?

-Yeah, I know,

it's just I didn't want to break their routine, so...

Oh, right, OK, it's just that... I thought you said that you would.

-Never mind.

-Yeah, yeah. Oh, hey, Monday I have my aromatherapy course,

so, would you be able to do school pick-up?

Oh, yeah, great.

Oh, Julia? That's not where we leave bags now.

-Oh, right, sorry.

-OK.

Sorry, hate leaving messages.

I won't ramble, I promise.

Nothing worse than that.

Goodness, some of the long, rambling messages I've heard in my time, I don't know.

Erm... Just, just wanted to check, Anne,

if you saw the post I put up about an hour ago.

Eye-opening, to say the least.

It actually says, erm...

E-MAIL ALERT

It, it actually, erm...

Erm... Oh, bugger off!

A stroke?

What, that lovely caretaker man that used to open the gate?

-When did that happen?

-A couple of weeks ago.

Oh, God, poor, erm...

Oh.

-Tommy.

-Tommy, yeah, Tommy.

-Was there a funeral?

-Well, hopefully not. He's still alive.

It was just a mild stroke.

He is happily recuperating in St Dominic's.

Did you not get my message? You should have got a WhoZis alert.

Oh, that's what that was. Yeah, I got about 12 of those.

One just said "Cake".

Oh, that's because you've got to remove yourself from the cake channel.

Is that why we're all jammed up here?

Yes, it's a bit of a makeshift system till he gets back.

I know it's my fault, but I'm going to have to mark you all down as late.

-Bye.

-Bye.

Don't worry about Liz. She doesn't hold a grudge.

She just sometimes finds it hard to let go of resentment.

That's literally what holding a grudge means.

You just said she didn't hold a grudge and then you just described a grudge.

See you, Kevin.

-Oh, did...? Did you see Julia back there, Liz?

-Kevin!

-I just th-think she'd love it...

-Kevin, drop it, all right?

The only team Julia is on is Team Julia.

I don't need any more users in my life.

-I'm doing a purge.

-She's just been under a lot of stress.

Oh, bloody hell, Kevin, you're exhausting.

No... Don't we all need to try and make the best of things?

What, should we all just give up?

I've just found out I've got a job interview on Wednesday.

I don't want to go back to work.

I've fucked myself.

I've fucked myself in the arse.

I've fucked myself right up the arse.

But we just have to make the best of it.

All right, sweary Mary!

Sorry. The baby didn't hear, did he?

Do you have to do the interview?

Yes. It's... It's complicated.

I have to at least look willing.

Do the interview. Just don't get the job.

I've not got hundreds of jobs. It's not as hard as you think.

Oh, I don't know. I'm not good at things like that.

You don't have to do much, just do something weird.

-Like what?

-Winking.

Try winking at them. That's how I got out of jury service.

Hi, Lindsey. I'm working from home this afternoon.

What's all...? Who are all these...? CHATTER

-Excuse me.

-Hello.

-Hey, just a sec.

Hi, Jules. Erm, oh, did you pick up any milk?

Erm, no, no, I thought that we had... Never mind.

You could pick some up on your way in tomorrow.

-I could get some later, or...

-Thanks. That would be amazing.

Thanks. Now, listen, I was thinking 3.30. Yeah.

OK, well, thanks.

I'll, erm, I'll just get on with my work, or...

..Talking to the mothers like this, I think your child...

Oh, sorry!

-Hi, Mum.

-Hi, kids.

-Hi.

-BABY FUSSES

-Sh!

CHATTER AND LAUGHTER FROM KITCHEN

Jesus!

Can't we just use e-mail? I really think e-mail is the best way to go.

Hi, hi, hi. Sorry to interrupt.

Erm, I, I've bought a card for the caretaker bloke.

-It just seemed that no-one...

-No, yes, yes, I tried to organise this.

It's under "card" in the collections channel.

Anne, did you not get that message?

I deleted it. I deleted the app.

-You deleted the app?

-Yeah, I did.

-Anne, for goodness' sake.

ALL TALK AT ONCE Sorry...

Could someone sign the ruddy card? SILENCE

Thanks.

DOORBELL CHIMES

-Hiya.

-Oh!

-Hello.

-Have you got a minute?

Oh, she's great. Oh, God, the kids love her.

She's so funny. She actually reminds me a bit of me.

What can I do for you, Julia?

Oh, yeah, I thought you might want to sign the card for Tommy.

School caretaker. They said he'd had a stroke.

Right. Oh.

Oh, my God. Look how much room Anne's signature is taking up.

Why don't you come back to the cafe and organise a new card?

This is what you're good at. Cards and...

This stuff. I mean, I'm totally out of my depth here.

No-one's organising anything, I mean, he's...

No-one's even visited him.

If Kevin or Anne want to organise a present, I'd be happy to contribute.

Amanda, no-one respects Kevin, and Anne is nuts.

Come on, this is what you're good at, organising shit,

you know, getting ladies to do...stuff for a good cause.

You know why I can't go back.

Because of the squaddie? Everybody's forgotten about that.

That's yesterday's news.

I mean, God! Way more exciting things have happened since then.

Tanya got refused planning permission for a side return, they might have to move.

Yeah, everyone's still talking about the threesome, but who cares?

I care.

Julia, I am a very private person.

Very discreet.

Unlike someone like Anne, who will blabbermouth about anything.

You know she told everyone how much my kitchen cost.

If she hadn't literally just had a breast reduction that week,

-I would have had it out with her.

-Anne's had a breast reduction?

I was told that in confidence, though.

Anyway, I am not giving them the satisfaction.

Oh, come on, Amanda, you are wasted just sitting around here.

Why do you care, Julia?

I've never seen you give two craps about anything that doesn't benefit you.

That's not...

Why don't you just go and visit him yourself?

I'm sure he'd appreciate that, at least.

Sorry, Peter should be with us shortly,

he's just dealing with a disciplinary thing with some parents.

We can start the interview now, if that's OK with you.

-No problem at all.

-OK. So, first things first,

I see you've had experience with year fives before.

Yeah. It was great.

Mainly maths and a bit of science.

KNOCK AT DOOR Come in.

OK, so I'll just go so you can pop your top off

and leave your clothes on the chair.

-I won't be popping my top off.

-OK, you can use a...

Liz, what are you doing here?

I'm phoning Lee.

It's lunchtime, I suppose he might be up.

-SOOTHING MUSIC PLAYS SOFTLY

-This is...nice. What's this?

Rainforest Sounds, Volume One.

Can't beat the rainforest's early stuff.

Do you think people who live in rainforests never get angry?

Well, I can turn it off if you want?

Better not.

Look, sorry to come to your work.

I have been asking to meet you for a while now.

OK. Well, he didn't say anything.

Of course he didn't.

Look, it is what it is.

We're in each other's lives now, our kids are going to be related.

We have to make the best of it.

SILENCE

SOOTHING MUSIC STARTS AGAIN

So, look, a few things to bear in mind with Lee.

Don't get a joint bank account with him.

Don't stop talking to your mum because of him.

Even if he makes you feel like it's you and him against the world.

Why are you telling me this?

Because it's hard having a baby.

Don't get me wrong, it'll be the best thing that's ever happened to you, but it is hard.

It's even harder having one with Lee, so make friends.

Make good friends.

You're going to need them.

I bet you're glad I kept my top on now.

-Jesus, that hasn't got sugar in it, has it?

-That's my decaf.

-Decaf?

-Well, if you haven't asked me to move up,

I'd be sitting next to my drink, wouldn't I?

You see, this is what happens when you start bossing people around,

we all end up drinking each other's drinks.

CONVERSATIONS STOP

A latte, please. Thank you.

Budge up, Anne.

His name was Bobby, he was about 28 years old,

it happened a few times when Johnny and I were going through a rough patch.

It's something we thought would bring us closer together, and in many ways it did.

The end.

When... When did he pop by?

Afternoon or evening?

Erm... Lunchtimes. Usually.

-How did you find the time?

-How did Johnny get off work?

All right, slow down.

Erm, we just made time.

It was usually a Wednesday.

Johnny would call in sick and I would come back after the drop-off.

Don't you have the cleaner on a Wednesday?

LAUGHTER

What sort of thing would you get up to?

Oh, hello, Kevin, what are you doing here?

Oh, Lindsey, is there any chance you could stay a bit later tonight?

Just an extra ten minutes, extra 15 minutes?

-Oh.

-I just have to go and see someone from school, in hospital,

and I'll be straight back. I promise I'll be back by 7.15.

I don't think he's getting any other visitors, so...

He's had a stroke.

It's a bit sad.

Is... Is that OK?

Yeah, no, like... It's fine, I'd...

I'd just love to know if this is going to become a regular thing.

Someone in school having a stroke?

I don't know. I don't think so.

Yeah, it's just, erm...

The last family that I worked for, they used to really,

really take the piss, and I'm not saying that's going to happen between,

you know, us, but...

Do you know what? Forget I said anything.

Go, have fun.

Oh, Julia.

Can you take the recycling out, please?

Hi, Tommy, hello. Hi, I just wanted to bring you a token, it's just a...

It's a bottle of whisky.

Mrs Lamb said it was your tipple of choice.

And a card, it's just to say get well

and thank you for everything that you do.

I'm not sure exactly what it is you do do, but, I mean,

certainly gate opening hasn't been the same since you...

It's just a whole new system.

And, look, I'm sorry for not saying hello or thanking you,

it's just that I've been rushing...

..everywhere, there's just never any time.

But it's better now because I've got this nanny.

Erm... She's really great, I mean...

She's a bit...

I don't know if it's her manner

or if it's because she's Australian, but she's abrupt.

She... She knows what she wants. She's a powerhouse.

A bit rude. I'm actually quite scared of her.

I winked my head off, Liz.

I winked during the interview, I winked after the interview.

I think I winked more than I blinked, but nothing.

Nothing seemed to faze her.

I mean, I like order and labels and storage solutions,

you should see my spice cupboard.

I mean, not now, but you should have a look when you're feeling better.

-Oh. Hiya.

-Hiya.

-What are you doing here?

-Same as you.

That's not Tommy, though.

-What do you mean?

-That's not Tommy.

That's not Tommy.

I don't know what that means.

It's just what it means, that's not Tommy.

All right?

In the hospital channel it said room 12.

Oh, we're not using WhoZis any more, we're back on WhatsApp.

Oh, let him have the whisky.

Liz, I just wanted to say that you were right about me.

Do you want to go for a drink after this, or...?

-Yeah, why not. Pub?

-Yeah, yeah, great.

Shit, my nanny won't want to baby...

Do you want to come back to mine, or...?

-Yeah, OK.

-Yeah.

-AMANDA:

-And we enrolled you in the Whisky Of The Month Club,

so you'll be getting one of these every month.

Oh, that's... Thank you!

Oh, Tommy, don't mention it. We leave our kids with people every day,

we can only hope they're with people as lovely as you.

-Bless you.

-I'm welling up here.

Thanks, everyone. I can't tell you, I really...

I really appreciate it. I was lucky.

I don't know if I'll get the feeling back in the left side of my body, but...

Yes, yes, yes! I didn't get the job!

I didn't get the stupid job!

Oh!

She's asked me out for a drink.

Sorry, go on.

Wait, so, you ask her to do things and she doesn't do them.

No. Well, yes, but she did sort the Lego into sizes.

And the Sylvanians are all dressed.

But she gets you to make her food while she puts them to bed?

No... Well, yes.

But only if I'm in the kitchen at that time.

I mean, she's great. She's just so...

Oh, God, she's the best...

I don't like her. I really don't like her, Liz.

I don't know, Julia. It sounds like you don't like her.

Oh, God, what am I going to do?

I finally found someone that can help me, I'm at work on time,

the children have never been so clean, but it's just that she's...

She's just a bit of a prick.

Tell her to piss the piss off.

Oh, God, that's her. Sh!

-Hey, Lindsey, hi.

-Hi.

This is my friend Liz. This is Lindsey. Lindsey, this is Liz.

-All right.

-We're just... We were just talking about how...

We were just talking about Trump and what a bit of a prick he is.

Yeah. Well, listen, I'm off now.

I'm going to come in an hour late tomorrow

because obviously I had to work late tonight.

I've left the dishes in the dishwasher this time because

that's really not my job, and I have said that a couple of times now.

But, guys, have a great night.

Lindsey, Lindsey, I just want to say...

I just want to say I'm really sorry, we're moving to America.

Hiya. Just want to check in, see how you are.

I haven't seen you for a while.

The kids have made you something.

Oh, how sweet of them!

How is the nanny getting on?

Good. Really good.

Had to let her go. It's fine.

I'm on it. But while I'm getting on it, is there a way...?

Any possibility that you could pick up the reins just for a little bit?

Oh, well, I'm going to stay in Dorking for a while.

With your sister just having had a baby,

I feel I need to be there for her. Give her a hand with all that.

OK. Great. Very good. Well, I better go.

Give me the pasta necklace back.

Give it to me.

Unbelievable!

-See you at the park later?

-TOMMY:

-Morning.

Morning!

Go, go, go!